Tag: roleplaying

It’s been an exciting month, and an amazing success so far thanks to all the enthusiastic backers and supporters of the Dungeon Solitaire games. The Devil’s Playground Kickstarter smashed its initial funding goal in under 24 hours, and has gone one to hit seven stretch goals. We are on the cusp of another stretch goal with three days left to get in on the Kickstarter.

Time to get into the dungeon, and get in on the great rewards! There are high quality red-back cards for both the Devil’s Playground and the Labyrinth of Souls games, both featuring incredible, original artwork by artist Josephe Vandel. Included in the rulebook are a stand-alone dungeon delving game, Labyrinth of Souls expansion games, an all new card-based territorial wargame with multiple variations. And by getting in now, you will get two Kickstarter exclusive cards with special rules for incorporating them into your games.

In these last three days, please help spread the news by sharing this post or the Kickstarter page with your friends and gaming groups, on your blogs and especially on social media. This kind of word of mouth really makes a difference.

There is nothing more I can say, except to thank you deeply for all your support, enthusiasm, and encouragement. These games can only reach their full potential with the support of backers like you. And so I leave you with a few words from the introductory material for the Devil’s Playground rulebook, words taken from Malhak the Great’s Tome of Demonology:

At last, thoughts fall like shooting stars in the gravity of awareness. Some burn with the light of blinding suns, others with the light of a dim candle. But all catch fire and burn out. Nothing ever remains. Yet until that time, the soul is a house divided. It is a devil’s playground, at war with itself and everything it encounters.

I have seen the pox-ridden skies Illeanth, and the vermilion seas of Yoon. I have conversed with voices in realms of unending darkness. I have nosed perfumes so exalted that a single whiff bore a thousand years of bliss. I have walked with the first ragged tribes of humanity, and I have tasted ashes in the fallen ruins of their great civilizations. I have seen the arcs of eons and heard the silence that reigns in the depths of space.

And yet, all of these experiences have been but dreams within dreams within dreams. For in the emptiness between thoughts, there is no good or evil, no up or down, no light or darkness, no backward or forward, no past or future. There is no sight, no sound, no taste, no smell, no feeling. There is only that which cannot be uttered.

Until the sun rises beyond the distant mountains, until the spring comes, until we wake again, we remain lost in a dungeon of our own making. Until the illusion of the mind itself is destroyed, we wander in its depths. And though we ourselves designed the patterns its winding halls, we do not know the way out.”

The Dungeon Solitaire: Devil’s Playground Kickstarter was launched on February 1st, and reached base funding in under 24 hours! It has since smashed through five stretch goals, and we are well on our way to the sixth. New stretch goals have been announced and new card art by Josephe Vandel has been revealed in a number of updates. And there’s more to come as we move into the middle of the campaign.

Thanks to all the backers have pledged already, and all our supporters who have shared the Kickstarter with friends and gaming groups, and on their blogs and social media. This kind of word of mouth really makes a huge difference!

If you haven’t check out the dungeon-delving fantasy card game that is Dungeon Solitaire, the original game, Tomb of Four Kings, is available for free, and is playable with a standard deck of playing cards. The greatly expanded tarot game, Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls, launched with a hugely successful Kickstarter in 2015. The rulebook is available in print on Amazon and other online book retailers, and in PDF through DriveThruRPG, and custom tarot cards are available through Gamecrafter.

I am more excited than ever that Dungeon Solitaire: Devil’s Playground is now in the works, once again expanding the labyrinth into the uncharted realms of the imagination. We’re going to deliver another great game!

Dungeon Solitaire: Devil’s Playground has been in development for a while, and has now launched an official Kickstarter campaign to reach its full potential.

Artist Josephe Vandel and I have teamed up again to bring you this new evocative fantasy adventure that includes a 54 card custom deck, with both a stand-alone game and expansion rules for the Labyrinth of Souls tarot game. There’s going to be gorgeous full-color artwork, higher quality cards, and plenty of extras. Creating the Labyrinth of Souls was a dream come true, and I am super excited about this new game, the new artwork, and the expansion rules. I hope we can all make this incredible journey together again, from Kickstarter to production. We’re planning to make the Devil’s Playground a reality, and we’re looking forward to delivering another great game!

Rulebooks for Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls are now available for $12.99 in the US. You can purchase copies direct from Createspace here (I do get a slightly higher royalty for these sales), but if you’re ordering other stuff, you can get it on Amazon with free shipping. You can also order through most Amazon International sites, immediately … or very soon.

In any case, please take a moment to a review the game on Amazon, or on your blog or social media. Reviews are huge help in spreading the word about Dungeon Solitaire and allowing me to continue making expansions and more games. Check out some quotes from previous reviews and Labyrinth of Souls Kickstarter backers below.

“I have been consumed by this game and overjoyed at how much clever thought went into the making of this project.”

“There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of solitaire variants out there, but this is exactly what I’ve been looking for since the dawn of time. It’s amazing something like this hasn’t been created until now.”

I’m very excited to reveal the rulebook cover for Dungeon Solitaire: Labyrinth of Souls! The beautiful artwork and design are by the game’s exclusive illustrator, Josephe Vandel. I’ve been so busy with the production process that I haven’t had much time to post updates here, but as we get closer to the end of this epic journey, I am more excited than ever to share this game with all our backers and then with the rest of the world.

I just ordered print proofs of both the standard and monochrome card decks. I’m super excited, but it will be a week or so before I get them. In the meantime, I’m putting in final corrections to the rulebook interior and will be ordering print proofs of that as well. If all goes well, we will be shipping to our backers on time toward the end of June. Expect a public release sometime in July.

Mark L. Chance has written an excellent adventure featuring one of my hand drawn maps. “The Tombs of the Whispering Worms” is a descent into madness for Swords & Wizardry or other old school fantasy games. The adventure was recently featured on TSRs blogsite Multiverse, and is available as a free pdf download.

Here’s an image of page 1 (linked to the pdf) and a high resolution unnumbered image of the original map. Hope you enjoy the whispering worms!

Thirteen year old Dungeon Solitaire player August Mericle has played a perfect game of Tomb of Four Kings! That means not just a win, but a 100 point win, with all the treasure in hand as one exits the dungeon. August’s dad said he played several hours a day for about four days before winning the perfect game.

As far as I know, August is the first person ever to win a perfect game. I knew it was possible, and thought it was only a matter of time, so I was super excited to hear about his game. I was also very happy to hear the game had been played by a thirteen year old. My early gaming experiences were one of the inspirations for creating Tomb of Four Kings, so it’s great to be able to share it with the next generation of gamers.

A huge congratulations to August on his game! That’s a photo of the winning layout, with eight turns on the delve, four hit points, and all the treasure. Pretty awesome!

The new Dungeon Solitaire game, Labyrinth of Souls is funded and in production. And as another step to bringing the new game into the world, I am releasing an updated, revised edition of the original Dungeon Solitaire: Tomb of Four Kings! It’s available here as a free download.

There are no changes to the rules, but I clarified a couple rules, corrected typos, improved phrasing, and added suit symbols. Additionally, this new Tomb of Four Kings includes the winning game walkthrough, improved images, and a mention of Labyrinth of Souls in the back.

I will not be deleting the old pdfs, at least not immediately, since other websites may link to them directly. However, if you have links to the Tomb of Four Kings rules, please update those links to the newly revised rules. Or better yet, just link to this post, or to matthewlowes.com/games.

I hope you enjoy the new rules packet. Don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions about the rules. Send me your high score, especially if you get a perfect game (4/100). As far as I know, nobody has done it yet. It may be highly improbable, but it should be possible.

Absolutely amazing! The Labyrinth of Souls Kickstarter has been a monumental success, with a total of 638 backers from all over the world and $23,363 in funding. And what an incredible result. Every stretch goal was fulfilled, adding a ton of additional content to the game and some extras as well. I am already looking forward to all the creative work to put everything together, and to shipping out rewards.

Thanks so much to all our backers, and to everyone who helped spread the word about Dungeon Solitaire. They really made this project possible. They made this funding campaign a huge success, and made the Labyrinth of Souls a reality!

I’ll be taking a short break for the holiday, and then will be diving into the process of putting the rulebook and card deck together. I have a draft of the core rules written, and Josephe has created a handful of cards already, but there is still a lot of work to do. All backers will get a fulfillment survey in the new year, and I’ll be sending out Kickstarter updates every few weeks to keep backers apprised of the process right up until rewards are shipped out.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding the Labyrinth of Souls. You can reach me through Kickstarter, through the Contact Page on this website, or through social media.

So much has happened I don’t know where to begin. The Dungeon Solitiare, Labyrinth of Souls Kickstarter has continued to clear stretch goals and gain backers at an impressive rate. We’ve released new card art for The Moon, and a number of concept sketches for upcoming cards. On Thursday we were chosen as a Kickstarter staff pick and have seen an increase of traffic as a result. We cleared the last of our initial stretch goals at $7500 early Friday and have gained considerable ground since.

Many thanks to everyone who has backed this project already and all who have helped spread the word. Clearing these stretch goals means all my highest hopes for what I wanted to include in the rulebook will now become a reality. It’s been really wonderful to see this level of support and backing. Josephe and I are both looking forward to delivering an exceptional game and gaming experience in the Labyrinth of Souls.

Everyone backing now for at least $5 is going to get not only the core Labyrinth of Souls basic, expert, and advanced game, but also a multitude of alternate and expanded rules added on by our stretch goals, including Campaign Mode! They’re also going to get a free pdf copy of Giant, my giant robot skirmish game that works great for print and play. And everyone who backs at the $15 level and up is going to get at least one custom illustrated Labyrinth of Souls tarot deck.

But there are still 11 day left in the campaign. We think we can get a lot more people in the Labyrinth, and we want to offer another reward to our existing backers. So with this in mind, we’ve added a $10,000 stretch goal: All rewards levels $15 and up will receive a digital art book by Josephe Vandel featuring the Labyrinth of Souls artwork in large format and in all its detailed glory.

Dungeon Solitaire Reviews

"Since its release, I've been playing game after game when I can find the time, and this solo card game is exactly what I tried cobbling together years ago. It's an amazing game ..." --Tim Snider, The Savage Afterworld

"The best thing going for DS-LoS is that it's a lot of fun. If the Labyrinth of Souls were only a Tarot deck, it'd still be great, but what really pushes it over the top is that the game for which the deck was made is terrific fun." --James Bulls, Left Hand Tarot

"Dungeon Solitaire is incredibly rich and thought-provoking. This game takes you by surprise." --Geoffrey Greer, Past Go Gaming

We all have seen a few experiments with D&D and poker cards, but this is the one that finally pulls it off. Smart, fast, elegant, easy to learn and a lot of fun. Absolutely recommended! --Ronnie Rocket, Google+

"It is called Dungeon Solitaire ... and it is brilliant." --John Payne, Sycarion Diversions